


Visions from the Maw

by sithcommando236



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Cast of all OCs, Gen, Wrote this for a college course, black holes, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8204674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithcommando236/pseuds/sithcommando236
Summary: While en route to an important military rendevouz, Darth Zhorra and Oblivion Squad run into an unexpected obstacle: a supermassive black hole.





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I've been meaning to upload this fic for a while; I actually wrote this for one of my college courses last semester, so it isn't a HUGE story or anything, but I still liked it enough to post it. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy reading it, and remember, comments and kudos are always appreciated!

Darth Zhorra watched the blue vortex of hyperspace speed by through the starboard viewport of her quarters on the _Ellipse_ , her personal _Fury_ -class starship.  She had always found the infinite vortex interesting, for it was one of the few concepts that she couldn’t manage to fully wrap her mind around.  The ability to make a ship travel faster than light and arrive in different star systems within hours was an amazing feat, and something that she would have to study at a later time.    

Her gaze shifted from the swirling vortex to focus on her reflection staring back at her from the viewport.  She was a Zabrak from the planet Dathomir; the black facial tattoos common among her species slashed across her face, stretching from her forehead to around her eyes, cheeks, lips, and down the front of her neck.  Seven short horns grew on the top of her forehead and in her hair, which was cropped close to her skull.  She stared back at her own amber eyes in the viewport, then her gaze drifted over her black, form-fitting robes to the weapon clipped to her belt: a lightsaber, the preferred weapon of those who battled using the Force.

Her lightsaber was a work that bespoke both grace and power: colored silver, the hilt had a black fitted grip along most of its length; the activation switch, energy adjuster, and blade length adjuster were recessed into the hilt so as not to obstruct the wielder’s hand when the saber was held; the pommel was rounded and featured concentric horizontal circles up to the grip; the blade emitter was surrounded by four short spikes.  When activated, the saber itself was a rich amethyst color and small crackles of excess energy would intermittently dance around the emitter. 

Zhorra had practiced with her sparring droid earlier; it paid to stay sharp, especially with the many dangerous situations she often found herself in.  She was one of the few Sith commanders in the covert operations division of the Imperial military, and was currently en route to a rendezvous with a select few other covert-ops squads with the intent of ambushing a large Jedi strike force that had caused the Empire a lot of trouble on various worlds caught in the conflict between the two galactic governments.   

Zhorra’s personal squad was known as Oblivion Squad.  She was its commander, along with Major Korvus as her co-commander.  He was an effective leader and the other squad members looked up to him.  The Sith and her commandos had served together for over five years now, from before the Treaty of Coruscant and now into the resurgent war.

Korvus’ voice filled the room as he addressed Zhorra using the ship-wide comm, “My Lady, we require your presence in the cockpit.”

She finally turned from the viewport and walked over to her personal quarters’ comm interface, then pressed the button next to the speaker and responded with a simple, “On my way.”  Then she exited her quarters and made her way to the cockpit.

 The _Ellipse_ was a relatively small ship, shaped like a sharp and angular _U_.  The cockpit was at the front of the inner center of the _U_ , and connected to the central activity hub. The hub was the central compartment of the ship, while other compartments served as either crew, medical, or personal quarters and were spread out in either of the ship’s wings.  The very back of the ship contained the primary and secondary engines, hyperdrive, and other internal systems necessary for the ship’s continued functionality.

Zhorra entered the cockpit and was greeted by the sight of Korvus and the rest of Oblivion Squad at their respective stations, monitoring various readouts and the like, their helmets clipped to their belts in case of emergencies (when sealed from the environment, a soldier could survive in the cold void of space for a maximum of thirty minutes; any more, and the suit’s environmental stabilization systems would begin to fail).

Korvus was the first to notice her entrance.  He was a human in his mid-thirties and spoke with a rough, drawling accent compared to the aristocratic accent typical of most Imperial citizens. 

“Officer on deck!” he announced, then jumped to attention and saluted, just as the rest of the squad did.  They all wore the jet-black armor of the covert-ops division, which featured an upgraded tactical heads-up-display in their helmets and slightly more resilient armoring.

“At ease,” Zhorra said.  Buldun, Oblivion’s heavy weapons expert, and Gerrod, the medic, both sat back down at their stations and returned to what they were doing on their consoles.  “What’s the situation, Korvus?”

Korvus glanced at the squad’s pilot, Kaylia.  She was a human with a slight build in her early twenties, and was a distinguished technician and mechanic, as well as an experienced pilot.  “Lieutenant?” Korvus nodded at her, giving her the go-ahead to brief their commander.

Kaylia spoke with the more common Imperial accent, “My Lady.  As you know, we have to pass through the Maw in order to avoid detection by Republic forces while we make our way to the rendezvous site.”

Zhorra nodded.  The Maw was a massive cluster of black holes on the edge of the Outer Rim.  It was extremely dangerous to navigate, but the black holes would effectively shield the _Ellipse_ from scans on all spectrums, since the presence of so many black holes in a relatively small area of space would distort and obstruct any and all scans looking for a small craft.  X-ray scans could pick up the black holes themselves, but not the ship. 

Kaylia continued, “The problem is that we just started receiving some disturbing scans from the cluster and-”

\- and that was when the trouble started. 


	2. A Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew discuss their predicament.

There was an enormous _crash_ as the ship was suddenly ripped out of hyperspace.  Alarm klaxons began to shriek and the red glow of emergency lights flickered on and off.  What shone through the front viewport was what appeared to be an immense space of nothingness.

“What the _hell_ is happening?” Korvus yelled.

Kaylia frantically pulled up and swiped through multiple readouts on her console.  “It looks like two of the Maw’s black holes have merged into one supermassive black hole!  We were pulled out of hyperspace by its gravity well; we’re stuck on a – I don’t know what to call it – a collision course!”

Not being an expert on how black holes worked, Zhorra asked, “Is there anything we can do?  I _refuse_ to die because of a tactical error and a random act of cosmic power!”

Buldun, a big human male with a penchant for large blasters and extreme workout sessions, got out of his chair at this point and asked in a deep, yet somewhat nasally voice, “Why don’t we try rerouting power to the hyperdrive and fly back out of here?”

Gerrod, a wiry man with many years’ experience in the medical field, stood up as well and said in a lilting accent, “We were pulled _out_ of hyperspace to begin with; I don’t think it’s as easy as just blasting back out of here.  Kaylia, any suggestions?”

She took a breath, hesitated, then said, “The gravity’s too strong to try and fly out of here, and we don’t have the angle necessary for a slingshot.” 

She hesitated again, then, with a heavy sigh said, “I can’t think of anything.  No one has ever been pulled into a supermassive black hole’s gravity well and escaped.  I hate myself for saying this, but I don’t think there’s a way out of this.”

Buldun and Gerrod just stood and stared at Kaylia slack-jawed.  Then, they silently turned and sat back down in their chairs and stared unseeing at the readouts on their consoles.

Korvus said, “I’m not giving up, not like this.  Give me best-case and worst-case scenarios.  And someone shut that damn alarm off!”

After deactivating the warning klaxons, Kaylia turned around in her chair to look at Korvus and said, “Well, sir, the best-case scenario is that we don’t get torn apart when we cross the event horizon, the black hole bends time and space so heavily that it actually has an exit hole somewhere in the galaxy, and when we do get through that exit, any number of years haven’t passed and we don’t end up missing several centuries of galactic history.  Worst case is that any of those things lead to our deaths.”

Zhorra quirked a brow.  “That sounds like a lot of conjecture….”

Kaylia sighed.  “It is.  Black holes are one of the few remaining celestial bodies that aren’t fully understood.  They form from a supermassive star that goes supernova and then the star’s core collapses back onto itself.  It collapses back on itself so much that it creates this ‘hole.’  The black hole’s gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape it, and celestial debris can get pulled in if it’s caught in the gravity well.”

Still sounding somewhat shaken,

Buldun turned around again and asked, “So, what happens to the stuff that falls in?”

“Soon, we’ll hit the event horizon.  That’s where stuff gets weird, like, _really_ weird.  The event horizon is the last point at which an outside viewer can see anything that falls into the black hole.  To them, it’ll seem as if everything just freezes, held in place forever.  Look out the viewport, you can see all of the stuff that’s already fallen in.” 

Kaylia pointed outside the viewport and Zhorra, Korvus, Buldun, and Gerrod crowded together and leaned forward to get a better view.  They could see immense amounts of cosmic gasses surrounding the outer edges of the hole.  Farther away, the gas was slowly moving closer to the empty black mass at the center of the accretion disk, whereas the debris already at the edge of the hole appeared to have simply stopped.

Gerrod simply said, “Maker….”

Kaylia said, “Yeah.  The bad part is, for whatever falls inside, tidal forces around the event horizon may or may not tear it apart, depending on the mass of the object.  This particular black hole just might be big enough that we won’t be torn apart, if the calculations I’m having the ship’s computer run are accurate.” 

Zhorra turned away from the viewport to look at the young pilot.  “So what about when we’re inside?  You said something about an exit?”

“Once we get across the horizon, the black hole bends space so that no matter where you turn or look, you’ll always be aimed at the black hole.  Some have theorized that two black holes may act as ends to a tunnel that could connect two points in space-time.  If this were true, we would fall into this black hole, space would get super-screwy, and then we would be spit back out at some other point in space, where any amount of time may have passed.”

“But if that were the case, why is that gas and debris frozen at the edge of the hole?”  Zhorra asked.

Kaylia shrugged and turned her hands palms-up.  “I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  Honestly, I’m surprised I was able to explain as much as I already have.”

Buldun then asked, “Wait, back up.  You said any amount of time could’ve passed? What’s that even mean?”

“The time we are experiencing even right now doesn’t correlate to the time everything outside of the black hole’s influence experiences.  Which also reminds me; there’s a theory that once something is inside the black hole, it will eventually be stretched and pulled apart into one infinite strand of atoms.”

At this point, Zhorra made a decision.  “I have a plan.  If we just wait this out, we might just prolong our deaths.  If we accelerate our falling into the hole, I might be able to harness enough power through the Force to hold the ship together for some time, and maybe, just maybe, that tunnel theory might actually be true and we make it through to the other side.  That, or we die faster and don’t have to dread it longer than we have to.  What do you think?”

Korvus said, “If you truly believe in that plan, I’ll go along with it.  It’s the best we’ve got.

The rest of the crew echoed his sentiments.

“All right,” Zhorra said, “I’ll meditate in the central hub and try to extend a protective Force bubble around the ship.  Kaylia, guide us in gently as you can; Gerrod and Buldun, monitor shields and the engine’s status; Korvus, you’re in charge while I try to hold us together.”

She looked around at each of the men and one woman that she had commanded on several ops over the last decade of her life and saluted; something a Darth almost never did, but Zhorra had always done so in order to foster more cohesion among her squad.  “You are a damn fine squad, and I am proud to have served with you.  Good luck.”

They nodded, then each returned the salute and immediately went to perform their tasks.

Zhorra turned and went to the central hub.  There was a holo-table in the center of the room that served as an operations-brief center for examining logistics and strategizing.  Zhorra sat next to the table, on the floor, and crossed her legs.  She closed her eyes and dug deep within herself, deeper than she had ever before.  She used her passion; her fear and anger at her predicament; her care for her squad; she used it all to dig deep into the Force and put forth as much power as she could muster.  She felt the power flow through her; she was its conduit; its guide.  She used that power to surround the ship with protective layers of Force, and, having become the conduit for more power than she had ever used before, something strange happened. 

Zhorra opened her eyes, except her eyes were still closed.  She could see them right in front of her – that was when she realized.

 _I can see outside of my body right now_ , she thought to herself.  _This immense power must be affected by the black hole somehow, maybe augmented, who knows._

Zhorra then shifted her viewpoint to the cockpit, where she could see Korvus pacing back and forth as Gerrod and Buldun kept energy output in the ship focused primarily on shields, life support, and the engines.  She could see Kaylia focused on guiding the ship farther and farther into the black hole, its yawning maw ready to swallow the ship whole.

Then she shifted viewpoint again, this time outside of the ship, watching as it moved farther and farther in.  The ship began to get buffeted by the immense gravitational field of the event horizon, but somehow, Zhorra managed to hold the ship together.  Then they were buffeted by extremely hot ionized gas, which Zhorra also deflected with the Force barrier.  And finally, they were in the black hole.


	3. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zhorra and Oblivion Squad enact their plan.

All around the ship, gas and cosmic debris circled and stretched to impossible lengths, farther than the eye could see.  The ship vibrated at an alarming rate, but Zhorra poured more and more power into her barrier.  For what felt like forever and, somehow, like no time at all, everything stopped.  There was no movement, no sound, no anything. 

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, motion began again and the ship began to move more rapidly than it had upon entering the black hole.  Lights of a billion different colors from all across the spectrum flashed outside of the ship, then winked out of existence. 

It felt as if the ship sped up and slowed down at the same time, going forwards, backwards, side to side, all at once. 

There was a magnificent flash of light, an inverse of color, and a huge _crack_!

Then darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

Zhorra came to slowly.  Her body ached in places she didn’t know could even ache, and part of her just wanted to slip back into the merciful embrace of unconsciousness.  Then she realized two things: one, she was conscious, which therefore meant she was alive, and two, the ship was no longer being buffeted by immense gravitic power or heat.

She slowly sat up; she had collapsed from exhaustion in the floor of the central hub.  She blinked and took a few deep breaths to center herself, then stood.

She entered the cockpit, where she had left her squad.  They were all slumped in their chairs, unmoving.  She could sense that they were still alive, just unconscious. 

 _My connection to the Force must have allowed me to come to before them_ , she thought.  Then she looked through the viewport and was shocked by what she saw: They were floating far away from what looked like a supermassive black hole.

 _Wait a second, that looks like…no way_.

It was the black hole they had fallen into.  Somehow they had ended up just outside of its gravity well.  Somehow, they had entered the black hole, fallen deep inside, then were spit back out to just outside of its reach.  They were either extremely lucky, or this was some sort of purgatory that Zhorra and her companions would be forced to endure for eternity.

However, Zhorra began to believe that they had been simply very lucky when the rest of her squad came to and Kaylia said in an overjoyed voice, “I just checked the scanners, not only are we outside the gravity well, but we’re also only two weeks later than when we entered.”

 _Two weeks_ , Zhorra thought.  _That’s fine, I will gladly exchange two weeks if it means surviving something like that_.

Korvus said, “We may have survived, but we did miss that op that we were en route to.  I know we just had what was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but we also have responsibilities.  Let’s report back to Command and find out what we’ve missed.”

There was a chorus of _Yessir_ s from the crew, and Kaylia entered a hyperspace route that would take them out of the Maw and back to Imperial space, where they would have to report this most-likely unbelievable event.

Zhorra watched as the black hole slid out of view of the viewport one last time, then watched as Kaylia engaged the hyperdrive and the stars stretched into the blue vortex of hyperspace.


End file.
